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Syria Says It Will Join Conference in Maryland

A Palestinian woman waited in a vehicle at a checkpoint on the road to Jerusalem Sunday as Israeli soldiers passed by, on high alert in the days leading to the Middle East peace meeting.Credit
Muhammed Muheisen/Associated Press

WASHINGTON, Nov. 25 — Syria announced Sunday that it would attend the Middle East peace meeting beginning here Monday night, joining Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab League participants in a turnabout that represented a victory for the Bush administration.

Syria, a supporter of groups opposed to a Palestinian peace with Israel, said it would send a deputy foreign minister to the meeting, which will continue on Tuesday in Annapolis, Md. In return, Syria was promised that Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights, taken from Syria in the 1967 war, would be on the agenda.

The Annapolis meeting, a major initiative pressed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will begin negotiations on a peace treaty to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while simultaneously committing Israel and the Palestinians to carry out long-postponed obligations contained in the first stage of the 2003 peace plan known as the road map.

The presence of major Arab countries, now including Syria, is meant to provide Arab sanction and support for the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to make the concessions required for peace. The Arabs promise Israel that a comprehensive peace will mean their recognition of the Jewish state. But a comprehensive peace must also include a resolution on the Golan Heights.

Most important, however, Syria risked isolation from the Arab world if it did not come. Syria is already a kind of outlier, run by an Alawite minority and an ally of non-Arab, Shiite Iran. Syria supports Iranian-supported clients like Hezbollah, in southern Lebanon, as well as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories — all opposed to a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement or Israel’s right to exist.

In Gaza on Sunday, the Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri, said: “Any results from Annapolis will not be recognized by the Palestinian people. No one is delegated to give up on our basic rights. We are ready to offer blood to defend them.”

Syria’s announcement about participation came in a brief dispatch carried by the official Syrian Arab news agency, which stated that it had accepted an invitation from the United States “after adding the Syrian track on the conference agenda.” Its delegation will be led by Faisal Mekdad, a deputy foreign minister.

Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel, said, “The Saudi and Syrian presence is very important and is an American success.” While the Syrians are not sending the foreign minister — a diplomatic distinction that has meaning — Ms. Eisin said that from Israel’s point of view, the rank of the representative was much less important than the Syrian presence.

“Hamas is appalled, which is why we have reason to be satisfied,” Ms. Eisin said.

About the results of the meeting, Ms. Eisin said, “We’re hopeful but not optimistic.”

Mark Regev, the Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, noted that Syria had agreed to cancel a planned “anti-Annapolis summit” meeting and attend instead. “If the idea of the meeting is Arab-Israeli dialogue, Syria matters,” he said. “It would be even more positive if this were an indication of a change in Syria’s orientation” — away from Iran and toward the Saudi- and Egyptian-led Sunni Arab consensus.

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The meeting opens on Monday evening, after President Bush has separate meetings with Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas, with a lavish dinner at the State Department. On Tuesday, at Annapolis, the three leaders will meet privately, then deliver speeches. Then, after lunch, there will be three consecutive sessions: on bilateral Israeli-Palestinian peace; on efforts by the former British prime minister Tony Blair to help the Palestinians create the economy and institutions of a state; and on regional issues, including the Golan Heights and Lebanon.

On Wednesday, Mr. Bush will meet again, though separately, with Mr. Abbas and Mr. Olmert, with other issues on the Israeli agenda, like the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran.

On Sunday, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni of Israel had lunch with Ms. Rice and met with her and the Palestinian negotiator, Ahmed Qurei, to try to work out a joint Israeli-Palestinian statement before the Annapolis meeting. The statement, which Ms. Rice says was not an American idea, has proved problematic. If there is one, it will be limited to a vow about the future and next steps, rather than a summary of the shape of a final agreement.

Israelis praised the Arab presence here. “There isn’t a single Palestinian who can reach an agreement without Arab support,” Ms. Livni said.

A peace will involve concessions for both sides, but also a deal on the future of Palestinian refugees and the final status of Jerusalem, an issue that Muslims and Jews consider to be a supra-national issue.

In Israel, reaction to Syria’s participation was political. Gilad Erdan of the opposition party Likud told Israel Radio that Syria’s participation “proved that all we are talking about is a masked ball in which even a terror-supporting state like Syria can participate.” About the meeting, he said, “in the end it will all come at Israel’s expense.”

Ran Cohen, from the leftist Meretz Party, said: “I think Israel has to receive this as a great opportunity, that Syria comes for diplomatic negotiations, and also to open a direct Israel-Syria-Lebanon channel for peace, to prevent the next war, advance us perhaps, toward peace, and also to isolate Iran.”

Three Palestinian militants were killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Sunday, and Israeli security forces went on heightened alert in and around Jerusalem for several hours after receiving intelligence about possible attacks before the Annapolis meeting.

Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Syria Says It Will Join Conference In Maryland. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe